


nid de corbeau

by jeanandjeremy



Series: the survivor [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Abuse, Depression, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Torture, ayyy yeah not a happy story but i find the relationship between these three so fascinating, basically a backstory, sort of, tags will be added as the story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 20:23:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8547895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeanandjeremy/pseuds/jeanandjeremy
Summary: Riko is destroying Jean, and all Kevin can do is watch, helplessly. 
Kevin, Riko & Jean through the years.





	1. coucher de soleil

He was 12 when Jean arrived, his sun-kissed skin and chocolate brown hair out of place at the nest. There was a storm raging in his grey eyes, Kevin noticed. It would only get him in trouble.  
It did. The next morning, Jean appeared to his first training session with bruises littering his body and a black 3 marking his freckled cheek. The master didn’t ask any questions.  
Kevin knew what happened. After all, he was the one that had held Jean down, even when Riko’s blows kept coming and Jean had stopped cursing in French. He didn’t apologize for spitting in his new master’s face. Maybe he couldn’t, Kevin thought. Maybe he just doesn’t speak English.  
Jean doesn’t prove him wrong until a few weeks later. The entire time he’s been there he remained silent or spoke only French, not a word of English passing his lips. Until Riko is renewing the mark on his cheek, occasionally slapping Jean across the face (for fun, or maybe it’s just because he can. Kevin doesn’t really know, but lately there’s a lot about his best friend, _his brother_ that he doesn’t understand.) When they turn to leave, Jean calls after them from where he’s sitting on the floor with a spit lip: “Fuck you, Riko”, the older boy spits out, eyes cold and angry. Riko stares at him, then he laughes and kicks. And kicks. And kicks.  
Kevin doesn’t think he will ever forget the sickening snap that fills the room, foot connecting with ribcage one final time. Jean curls up and Riko steps back. Silence.  
“Jean…”, Kevin doesn’t know what to say. _I'm sorry_ is meaningless when both of them know hell’ll end up holding him down again at some point. “Are you ok?”, he asks and reaches out a hand. Jean flinches away, then he laughs. His eyes meet Kevin’s and he stares. Kevin wonders what they are to each other. What does Jean think of him?  
Riko’s voice interrupts his thoughts. “Oh, Jean, Jean, Jean.” Kevin looks at him, trying to figure out what he's doing. It can't be anything good.  
“Riko, stop it. Don’t you think you did enough?”  
“Quiet, Kevin”. The Raven King turns to him and reminds his brother of his place with a slap in the face. Kevin looks down, where Jean is still sitting on the floor clutching his ribs. Jean is staring at them as if he’s trying to figure their relationship out. It’s complicated. Sometimes, like now, Kevin looks at his best friend and doesn’t recognize him at all. How could this boy he’s known literally all his life break somebody’s bone and show no regret at all?  
“Jean”, the King continued, mocking sympathy. “Don’t you understand your place by now? You’re property, _my property._ You will do as I say and you will show me respect. Sooner or later, no matter how many bones I have to break, you will realize it.”  
He takes a menacing step towards Jean, who stares right through him at the door.  
“And do you know why? Why do you think your family sold you, gave you away? You’re nothing. You’re worthless. They don’t care about you, _nobody_ fucking cares about you. Nobody will ever save you, don’t you understand?”  
As a tears rolls down Jean’s cheek over his mark, Riko smirks.  
“Come on, Kevin”. Riko leaves without sparing a second glance at Jean, but Kevin turns back before following him. The older doesn’t notice him at first. When he does, they just stare at each other, neither of them knowing what to say.  
_I'm sorry for letting this happen,_ Kevin wants to tell him, but somehow he can’t, the meaningless words getting stuck in his throat.

*

He’s just turned 13 when they really talk for the first time, when Riko is busy talking with the master, leaving the two of them alone for once.  
“Why do you always do what he says?”, Jean asks, completely unfiltered, his French accent prominent. He’s using his English more nowadays, ever since Riko started punishing him for speaking his native language.  
Taken aback, Kevin doesn’t know how to answer. They’ve been living together for almost three months now but have never directly spoken outside of training. It dawns on him how fucked up their situation really is.  
“You- you wouldn’t understand”, is all he can come up with and Jean, obviously unsatisfied, is staring at him again. “Were you… sold, like me?” He seems to struggle to admit what his family did to him. Kevin can’t look the other in the eyes as he shakes his head. Maybe he thought they were the same and shared a common fate. It was different for him tough, worse and better at once. Riko would never go too far with him, yet every hit hurt more than it should. They were supposed to be brothers, after all.  
His mother wouldn’t have let this happen, Kevin thinks, trying to ignore the ache in his chest as he thinks of her. Her long black her, the wrinkles when she smelled, the way she smelled like home no matter how long she was gone. Except, now she was gone forever. Still, a dead mother was probably better than one that sold her son, he thinks as he looks at Jean. He’s already changed since coming here. It upsets Kevin. It scares him, how just a few months at the nest have shaped Jean into another version of himself. Noticing the way the French boy is looking at the floor now instead of holding his head high as he used to, Kevin realizes he hates it: Truly hates what Riko is doing to Jean, what Kevin is letting happen. If nothing changes, what will be left of Jean in the end?  
( _Nothing…_ whispers Riko’s voice in his head)  
“So, Jean, where exactly are you from?”  
“Marseille. It is very… sunny. There’s... the ocean too and the beach”, he answers with a half-smile and that’s the happiest and most alive Jean has looked like since he arrived. It has to be enough.  
Kevin doesn’t think he could live with himself if Jean broke and he hadn’t even tried to stop it. 

*

In February, Jean starts teaching him French. At first it’s just a few words, whispered back and forth in stolen moments. They barely have time alone, Riko always just a few steps away. Whenever they do find a moment alone, Kevin tries to memorize as much as possible, repeating everything when he’s showering after practice. Riko can’t find out.  
Sometimes, Jean slips him pages filled with vocabulary scribbled down and Kevin eats it up, happy that the other boy hasn’t given up fighting yet, not even when Riko finds some reason to punish him whenever it pleases him.  
Time moves on. They train, study, train, eat and train some more. The Master keeps on pushing them. Slowly, Jean’s exy improves. It will still take a long time until he’ll be on a level close to that of the other two. That probably doesn’t bother him. He’s not like the other two. He plays well and he likes playing, maybe even loves it. It’s not his life though, or at least not willingly so. Kevin remembers the other boy from years ago: Nathaniel. He’d been like them.  
In June, Kevin finds a few knives in Riko’s things when he’s trying to clean up the room they share. They look like they were made to hurt, sharp, cold and awful. He wants to throw them away, forget he ever found them and never think about why his best friends owns them, what he plans to do with them. In the end, he just puts them back to where he found them because that’s what he does; He's helpless. He can’t stop Riko. If he threw them away, Riko would only be furious and the knives would be replaced.  
At the dinner table when Jean slips him another secret note, he has to hold his breath. _Please don’t get caught,_ is all he can think.  
I don’t want to have to hold you down as my brother cuts you open.  
It’s foolish, he ends up realizing when Riko tries out one of his knives anyways on Jean a few nights later. Kevin's there, biting his lip and trying not to throw up or look at Jean, who's holding back tears. Riko traces the blade across his cheek, leaving a smear of warm blood. "You know, we could make it permanent. Here and now." He pauses, knife still digging into the other's soft flesh. Jean used to have more freckles, Kevin notices.  
"Consider that next time you even think about disobeying." Jean nods weakly, lips pressed in a tight line. His shirt is painted red, the shallow yet painful cuts covering both him and Riko's hands. Kevin can't stop staring.  
"Clean yourself up", Riko orders as he gets up and cleans his hand in the sink. "Leave him, Kevin".  
Before following him, Kevin tries to force a smile and whispers: "Je suis désolé."  
Rico hadn't even bothered to come up with an excuse for testing his knives out on Jean. He doesn't have to.  
After all, he’s the Raven King.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title should mean: raven's nest  
> the chapter title: sunset  
> and at the end kevin tells jean he's sorry  
> lol i'm using my limited french skills and google, call me out if i butcher this beautiful language  
> i really love jerejean but at the moment i just couldn't find inspiration for my jerejean story which is how this happened.  
> yeah idk their dynamic is so intriguing i hope i can somehow capture these 3.  
> comments would be very appreciated :)


	2. bonne anniversaire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know it seems people prefer my jerejean fic even though there isn't even any jerejean in it yet... well anyways atm i just have more inspiration for this one because the dynamic is just sooo interesting and so unexplored. like i love jerejean but its so popular when its not even remotely canon yet kevin and jean or riko and jean or all 3 of them have such an interesting relationship but people aren't interested. well whatever rant over. enjoy, mind the warnings and maybe leave a comment :))))))

For a long time, Kevin isn’t sure whether things get better or worse.  
Their exy skills get better, so coach really starts to let them train with the team. Kevin turns 14 and Riko buys him a cake. It’s his favorite, chocolate. They eat it all that afternoon, laughing and hiding in their room so the master won’t find them like this. Stuffing themselves with sugar and sitting around being lazy is not acceptable and would get all of them in trouble. Riko doesn’t intervene when Kevin offers Jean cake and he doesn’t insult him or order him around all day. Maybe that’s the best gift of all. The King is being generous.  
The night of his birthday is spent looking at an old photograph of his mom under his blanket and only when he’s sure that Riko is asleep does he dare to sneak out of their room. He knocks twice softly on Jean’s door, careful not to wake the other’s roommate, a Raven freshman.  
After a few seconds the door opens to reveal the taller boy, his dark hair tousled and his eyes red. Kevin doesn’t mention. “Can’t you sleep?”, Jean asks, sleepiness making his accent stronger. “Is finally being 14 too much excitement for you?” The older chuckles, watching Kevin closely. They number 3 on his cheek is smudged and his eyes don’t seem as dead as they do now sometimes. Kevin’s afraid that someday Riko will cut and hit and curse until nothing will be left of the boy that arrived from Marseille.  
Slowly and quietly, Kevin leads him down hallways and up stairways until he stops in front of a steel door. “I used to come here a lot with Riko”, he explains and pushes the door open. “When we were younger… and needed some fresh air, my mom sent us up here. Later, we just came here on our own.” The cool night air hits Jean’s skin and even though he’s shivering, Kevin sees the other light up. When he breathes in and looks at the endless sky above him, he feels it too. He needed this. It’s his gift to himself.  
They settle down on the roof, Jean stretching his long limbs out as he yawns. In French, Kevin asks him about his birthday.  
“Mine?” Jean doesn’t look away from the stars. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”  
“It does.”  
It takes Jean a while to answer. “I turned 15 two weeks ago…”, he finally admits, still not looking at Kevin.  
Silence settles over the roof. What was there to say? Kevin looked at the stars. He was far too old to believe in shooting stars but still, in that moment he just wished one would appear so that he could make a wish. No, screw that. He had more than one wish.  
He wanted his mother back. He wanted things with Riko to go back to the way they were. He wanted Jean to be happy. None of the things were realistic, but if he saw a shooting star he just wished that things would be different, better.  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know…” “I didn’t tell you.”  
“Does Riko know?” Jean nods. After a while, he adds: “Don’t you remember, he got me a gift? The new knife he got, _just for me…”_  
Kevin remembers: the terrible red against Jean’s pale skin, the beads of sweat on his forearm, the way he tried not to shake as Kevin held his arms over his head so he could be sliced open slowly  
“I should give you something too.” Finally, Jean turns to him with curiosity. “And what would that be?”  
“You could… you know, I’m allowed to do more than you are. I’m sure I could sneakily send out a letter for you, to your family or friends back home. I don’t know if you want to, but…” “That’s nice of you”, Jean says in English.  
It takes him a while to say more and when he does continue he switches back to French: “It’s nice of you, really. It’s just I can’t write to them. What should I write?”  
His voice gets a bit unsteady and he turns his head to stare at the stars again. Kevin tries to understand everything he’s saying even though he still struggles with the other’s mother tongue, just as Jean struggles with Japanese.  
“I don’t want to ask them why they sold me. I mean, what kind of answer do I expect. What kind of parents sell they child? And the others… my little siblings, I-“  
The door opens and the Raven King steps out on the rooftop. It’s still his brother’s birthday so he remains forgiving, not even complaining about the language they were using.  
“Thought I’d find you here”, Riko says and Kevin notices how tired he looks. Maybe a bit sad, too. He wonders when it became so hard to read what the other was feeling. He doesn’t need to ask why Riko came looking for him. No matter what happens, they don’t like to be apart. They are never far from each other, haven’t spent more than a few hours away from each other in years.  
Riko sits down next to him. “If we fall asleep in training tomorrow, the Master will kill us.”

 

Of course, the Raven King’s generosity doesn’t last. The next morning as Jean stumbles out of his room, Riko immediately pushes him against the wall. “Watch where you’re going, pet.”  
Of course, the Master notices how tired the three of them are and pushes them extra hard. After training, he punishes them.  
Of course, this is why the day ends with Kevin holding Jean down as Riko hurts.

 

Kevin being 14 means that exy becomes even more important. He is growing and getting stronger each day, can feel himself improving. Three more years and maybe then he can play with the Ravens. He loses himself in practice for hours, Riko by his side because this is their thing. Jean is there too, but as with most things Jean does not have a choice.  
During team practice the Ravens eye the French boy wearingly. Unlike the other two, he was not predestined for prefect court. They don’t know how to make sense of him, Kevin notices. His body is a map of bruises and cuts, yet he stills trains every day with them (he has no choice). He looks as Riko like he wants to kill him, yet he still obeys his commands (he has no choice). He plays exy well, almost being able to match Kevin and Riko, yet he doesn’t care about it. A lot of them hate him for that. They call him ungrateful and Kevin sees how he pretends to not hear it or care but he does. It shows in the way his gaze drops to the ground more and more often now. 

 

The last one to turn 14 is Riko. They celebrate and all is relatively well, but Riko waits and waits and waits like every year. Just like every year Kevin has known him (which is every year Riko has lived), his father doesn’t acknowledge him. After dinner, Riko is tired of waiting. Kevin can see his hands shaking, but not in a scared or weak way. It seems dangerous instead. The tension is thick. The clock is ticking.  
“Peux-tu me donner les pommes de terre?”, Jean asks, using his native language accidentally. It happens sometimes, though Kevin wishes it could have happened anytime but now. Not now, when Riko is gripping his fork so tight his knuckles have turned white. “I know you’re fucking stupid but is it so hard to understand? Didn’t I tell you to stop speaking anything other than English and Japanese?”  
Jean is staring at his plate, having realized his mistake. It’s too late now.  
“Answer me when I’m fucking talking to you.” The fork misses Jean, but the pure shock has Jean flinching. Riko grabs his shirt collar and slams him against the wall. “No wonder your parents had no use for a stupid little bitch like you.” He drags Jean into the hallway and Kevin stays seated at the dinner table for a moment, processing, waiting. Then he follows the noise coming from the hallway.  
“At least my parents spent some time with me before they gave me away. I’m not pathetic like you, waiting for a call from daddy that will never come”.  
Saying something like that to Riko is a death wish. Kevin doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, he almost has the urge to shake him until he comes back to his senses. Maybe his head hit the floor too many times and he had a concussion.  
Riko doesn’t respond. He lets go of Jean’s shirt silently, smoothing over the wrinkles he created. They stare at him. This can’t be it. The Raven King never loses a fight.  
They’re all waiting for the inevitable fallout.  
Riko pushes. Jean falls.  
Kevin runs down the stairs. Too much blood. He looks up and sees the King looking down at them, his expression unreadable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title means happy birthday (or at least i think so)  
> the french jean uses means can you hand me the potatoes  
> i know i know  
> my french skills are otherworldly  
> ok good night i need sleep

**Author's Note:**

> the title should mean: raven's nest  
> the chapter title: sunset  
> and at the end kevin tells jean he's sorry  
> lol i'm using my limited french skills and google, call me out if i butcher this beautiful language  
> i really love jerejean but at the moment i just couldn't find inspiration for my jerejean story which is how this happened.  
> yeah idk their dynamic is so intriguing i hope i can somehow capture these 3.  
> comments would be very appreciated :)


End file.
